Category: Off Beaten Track Page 11 of 44
According to this article, the following are the greatest geeks of all time. Well, circa 2008 at the very least…
- Linux Torvalds
- Steve Wozniak
- Sir Tim Berners-Lee
- Seymour Cray
- Marc Andreessen
- Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
- Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce
- Alan Turing
- Richard Stallman
- Paul Allen
Have to admit, while the top 5 are familiar names to me, 6 & 7 are the “who??” choices, while 9 & 10 are not what I’d expected…
A bit geeky, I know, but it’s good to get back to your roots sometimes, no? After all, wouldn’t you like to know what the twisted mind behind…., say, PERL, looks like?? 🙂
Check out the creators of PERL and other well known computer programming languages in Faces behind popular languages.
Over dinner a couple of weeks ago, a friend shared with me some recent and unfortunate happenings involving his friend. As the result of a freak accident and a very probable case of medical incompetence, his friend was left with a severely damaged brain. A very likely outcome of this sad sequence of events is the loss of a husband for a newly wed couple, and the loss of a son to a mother.
We also briefly discussed about other aspects of death, like the well-known “last lecture” I mentioned before. I am truly full of admiration for people who can overcome their frustrations and live positively, right to the end.
Somehow this really put things into perspective. I mean, even when considering the recent world-wide financial turmoils – in fact, yesterday in the news, there was a Californian man who killed his 2 children, wife and mother-in-law before committing suicide because of his financial woes – what can be worse than losing your life/loved one at the prime of one’s life? What can be more courageous than to fight on and achieve your goals as best as you can?
Some thoughts from close to a year ago.
An oft-used theme in Chinese TV serials and movies is that of a bunch of bad guys trumping all over the good guys. In fact, come to think of it, this is a common theme in many forms of media and entertainment regardless of cultures. However, after all the teeth-gnashing, the good guys always triumph: good triumphant over evil, game over.
However, this only seems to happen in the movies.